“The idea for an eco-friendly business had been niggling since 2006, but it wasn’t until the following year that I started work on it properly. It went live at the end of 2007 and within a few months it was clear it was taking up and would need more of my time, so I made the decision to leave the financial sector and focus on My Greener Home.

“I’d had a desire to work in the City for a long time, and after training with IBM as a systems engineer I did some IT for an asset management firm that gave me the knowledge of the financial sector.

After sending out several application letters to research heads I got my break with HSBC and became an equity analyst, which was a fantastic and academically stimulating job that allowed me to learn all about the people who run companies and what makes businesses tick. My role for seven years at Norges was similar.

“The idea for the new business arose with the greater focus on climate change a few years ago. I anticipated there would be top-down pressure on governments in the shape of the Kyoto Protocol as well as bottom-up pressure for change – green awareness is now taught in primary schools.

“I’d work on setting up the website in the evenings during 2007, though the concept I had in mind didn’t take account of the vagaries of Google’s website search, so it took longer to set up than I’d envisaged.

“Setting up a business on my own from scratch has been a struggle, but I think most people ought to try it at some point. What I do now is not only great fun, but it has also enabled me to understand lots of corporate terms that I didn’t come across before, as an analyst covering other companies.

“Since it launched, I’ve only had one lull in confidence in the business, which was in the immediate aftermath of the coalition winning the UK election, when a general mood of austerity gripped the nation.

However, I expected things to get tougher again after the comprehensive spending review but that has thankfully not happened.

“The business has grown and is still growing fast, and I’ve learnt it’s difficult to control the size of it, so instead I focus on managing the cost side of things and let growth take care of itself.

“While My Greener Home is keeping me busy, I do miss the contact with people and the intellectual stimulation of the City, so I do some part-time work on the sellside.”